Alaska & Early Fall

Hello from Homer, Alaska (seen above), where Wild Shore is premiering one of my pieces as part of a beautiful and stylistically diverse program of new music celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. Wild Shore is up here this week, but after we leave Alaska, the whole program will be performed again at Federal Hall National Memorial in Manhattan on 8/23 and then at the National Sylvan Theater in DC on 8/25. The music on the program is all awesome, and the performers are incredible; I encourage you to go if you are able. I’ve got to admit that I’m not generally used to sitting passively as an audience member while my music is performed by other people, so I’ve been finding this experience both surreal and entirely agreeable.

I flew up here shortly after arriving back in New England from a long summer tour through what I consider to be many of the best parts of America. Parts of that tour looked like this, like this, like this, like this, like this and like this. For one concert, I got to play inside a log cabin built in the 1890s by a homesteader on the Olympic Peninsula, and at another one I played in a barn full of garlic. I love national tours, and the shows on this one were as gratifying and fun as any I’ve played.

Anyway, after I get back from Alaska, I’ll have a few shows in the northeast during late August and early September, where I hope to try out a few new songs. If you live near these places I hope you can come:

8/22 - BROOKLYN, NY - Pete’s Candy Store, 9:30pm
8/27 - MANCHESTER, MA - Manchester by the Book, 8pm
9/8 - CAMBRIDGE, MA - Lilypad, 8:15pm (details here)
9/15 - FITCHBURG, MA - Fitchburg Public Library, 6:30pm
9/18 - MONTPELIER, VT - Skinny Pancake, 5:30pm

Also, during the beginning of September, I’ll be headquartered in Waterville Valley, NH, courtesy of the Margret & H.A. Rey Center: I’ll be living and working in the cottage where H.A. finished writing the most comprehensible book about astronomy that I know about. Please visit.

That’s enough for now. It was great to see so many of you this summer. As always, I hope you’re all well, and I hope to see you soon.

Ben